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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571973">Sitting around the Piano</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiaroscure/pseuds/chiaroscure'>chiaroscure</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Downton Abbey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:35:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571973</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiaroscure/pseuds/chiaroscure</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>During a not-too-busy day, Jimmy plays the piano. Daisy and Thomas take the opportunity to reminisce about William, and to catch Jimmy up on some Downton Abbey social gossip from before his arrival. Friend fic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jimmy Kent &amp; Daisy Mason, Thomas Barrow &amp; Daisy Mason, Thomas Barrow &amp; Jimmy Kent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sitting around the Piano</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by the deleted scene in s3, in which Daisy informs Jimmy that she enjoys his piano playing, even though it makes her sad.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s a lazy afternoon, and Jimmy is playing the piano. Most of the Crawleys are away, along with their needed help, leaving the rest of them to relax a bit for once. Mrs Patmore is taking Ivy and Alfred to the village to look at cooking supplies. Daisy has stayed because someone needs to mind the rising loaves, and because she fancies the opportunity to have some time to herself. Someone has left the door to the servant’s hall open so the sweet spring air can waft through, nobody is bustling about and getting under foot, and loaves don’t need much tending so she’s free to make herself a cup of tea and have a sit if she likes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she comes out of the kitchen, there is Jimmy, tapping a pretty little melody on the old piano, and Thomas, sitting at the table a few chairs down with an inventory book in front of him that he is very much ignoring. It is a homey scene, Daisy thinks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She slides into a chair opposite Thomas with her cup of tea and he looks up with the gentlest expression she’s seen on him lately, like he’s been caught in the middle of some sweet reverie. She smiles knowingly, feeling like she could settle into the same mood easily if she sits here for more than a few seconds. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lovely, isn’t he?” she comments, gesturing at Jimmy with the tilt of her head. Something uncertain flickers across Thomas’s face, so she clarifies. “Isn’t he like William?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That doesn’t seem to help, because after a moment of languid confusion, Thomas just says, “...what?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daisy chuckles, and takes a sip from her cup. “Not really he isn't. Just for the piano, I meant. Remember how William used to practice such nice things sitting there? It always reminds me of him when Jimmy plays.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy reaches the end of his song, and twists in his chair to join the conversation. Thomas seems to snap out of his daydreamy state now the room has gone quiet, the confusion leaving his face too once Jimmy’s attention is on him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She said the same thing to me back when I first started,” Jimmy tells Thomas, then turns to Daisy. “William was your old husband, you said, didn’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How long were you married for? Can’t have been long,” he glances to Thomas, as if for confirmation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About five hours,” Daisy agrees. Jimmy looks like she might have slapped him, flinching back in his seat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh. Sorry,” he says, trying to sound unbothered but failing to meet her eye. Daisy just shrugs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s alright, you can’t have known. It weren’t a proper marriage anyway; we only did it because he were going to die either way and that’s what he wanted. I didn’t even really…” she stops herself from finishing the sentence, and instead repeats, “it weren’t a proper marriage.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even saying that is risky; she’s been reprimanded by upper staff since it happened for claiming her wedding had been a sham, even when she didn’t go into the details as to why. It is real enough that she and Mr Mason are friends now, and she doesn’t have much occasion to talk about it with anyone else anymore. Still, she feels like she’s lying when she thinks about William as her husband. She wonders if Thomas might correct her: he’s upper staff now, after all, and he knew William, so he might step into the role Daisy has come to expect someone to take up whenever she says the wrong thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t, though. Jimmy fidgets with his cuffs, conspicuously trying not to appear uncomfortable. Thomas casts him a sympathetic glance that Daisy would have missed had she blinked, but he seems more interested in contemplating her with an attitude that she doesn’t recognize. Somewhere between curiosity, concern, and revelation, if she had to guess. Thomas’s eyes flick back to Jimmy more thoughtfully this time, but ultimately return to her. She doesn’t quite know what to make of this, but she supposes it doesn’t matter much, and takes another sip of her tea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thomas was at the wedding,” Daisy supplies, in an effort to ease some of whatever tension she has introduced to the room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy raises his eyes to Thomas hopefully. “Yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thomas takes a deep breath before turning away from Daisy with a little fleeting smile. “Yeah. It was…” he pauses to rummage through his mind for an appropriate adjective, “I'm grateful to have been there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daisy almost giggles; she has never heard Thomas declare himself grateful for anything except sarcastically, but the softness in his tone makes her feel sure that he is being sincere. It’s a funny thing to feel grateful to have seen, Daisy thinks: a frightened maid marrying a dying boy she didn’t love back as she should have. Nobody was happy at that wedding; it was very personal but not at all </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Thinking back on it now, she’s surprised Thomas wanted to be there for it at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy seems to find Thomas’s assessment as unusual as Daisy does, his brow having furrowed and his lips twisting in his particular expression of uncertainty. Thomas seems unperturbed by the small spectacle he has made of himself, though he surely must notice the way both others in the conversation are looking at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Were you and William friends, then, Mr Barrow?” Jimmy asks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thomas snorts, causing Jimmy’s brow to furrow more. “I wouldn’t say that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thomas and William didn’t like each other at all,” Daisy explains brightly. “They had a fist fight over dinner once, before the war. Do you remember that, Thomas? It were very exciting, even though I don’t fully remember what you were fighting over.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy looks almost alarmed at that. “Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes...it didn’t go very far, though; Mr Carson and Mr Bates pulled us off each other quickly enough, so not much came of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think of you as a fighting man,” Jimmy tells Thomas. Daisy shakes her head in agreement, but Thomas’s cheeks go a bit pink, and he looks down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not because—” Jimmy stammers, “—I just mean you’re not a violent person, Mr Barrow. You know, you’re cunning and clever more than you’re a brawler, at least since I’ve known you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thomas seems assuaged by that, though Daisy doesn’t know what made him embarrassed about what Jimmy said in the first place. It’s true, after all. Whatever he might get up to, Thomas is not usually one to throw punches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“William started it,” Daisy tells Jimmy, to give him some more context. “Thomas were just holding his own.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“<em>I</em> started it by taunting him,” Thomas shrugs. “Daisy’s sometimes got a charitable memory for things to do with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Again, Jimmy looks in over his head in this conversation as Daisy laughs. Thomas watches her like he’s assessing whether or not his half-joke has landed or if it has upset her, which Daisy supposes he is. He’s got nothing to worry about though; he’s right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I used to be sweet on him for </span>
  <em>
    <span>years</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she explains to Jimmy. He’s getting a right earful of old Downton Abbey gossip this afternoon, she thinks with some amusement. “Strange to think about that now, isn’t it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grins at Thomas, who quirks an eyebrow but looks pleased. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not really. Shame your taste’s got so much worse, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jimmy makes a funny noise somewhere between a snort and a groan at the exchange, and when Daisy glances over at him he looks a mess, like he wants both to laugh and to ask questions but isn’t sure he’s allowed to do either. Jimmy gets himself into twists about the <em>oddest</em> things, Daisy muses, but that’s nothing new, so she doesn’t waste much time on it and instead just huffs at Thomas’s jab at Alfred. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t know you two had such a history,” Jimmy says to them both, perhaps to cover for his awkward reaction. “I never see you talking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thomas looks unreadably at Jimmy for a moment before shifting his attention back to Daisy, who just shrugs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Things change, don’t they?" she says. "Thomas was in charge when we were a convalescent home, then he was a valet and I never talk to <em>them</em>, and now the main reason he needs to come into the kitchen is to make sure <em>you’re</em> doing <em>your</em> job. It’s hardly a surprise, is it? We haven’t much to talk about these days anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something delicate passes over Thomas’s face as she speaks, but it’s gone in the blink of an eye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re talking now,” he adds quietly. There’s information in the way he levels his gaze with an unusual guileless determination to Jimmy, but it’s not information Daisy has the key to uncoding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Play us another, please, Jimmy, won’t you?” she requests, lounging back in her chair. Jimmy nods quickly as if she’s caught him skiving off. She watches him turn back to the piano with some amusement, and is pleased to see that Thomas’s mood has lightened to a less complicated state again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did William have a favorite?” Jimmy asks, flipping through the music book (which, he’s right to guess, has been there since William’s days as footman). </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daisy opens her mouth to reply but finds she’s not sure. Thomas, however, has a response: “page fourteen should do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Daisy shoots him a quizzical glance as Jimmy flips to the specified page, but Thomas just shrugs coolly and leans back in his own chair. Jimmy taps his foot a couple of times to find the rhythm of the music and starts playing. Immediately, Daisy recognizes the tune as one of her own favorites, and stares at Thomas more insistently. He tips his head back to look down his nose smugly at her, his smirk betraying nothing. But then he winks, and it’s clear that, whatever he might or mightn’t know about William’s favorite music, he has at least paid some attention to <em>hers</em>. She beams, and finishes her tea.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>...Daisy and Jimmy needed a break from the s4 love quadr/pentangle, I thought.<br/>(Find me on tumblr at sinaesthete.tumblr.com)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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